Brendan Cox Leaving DC Coast

Bit of news: Chef Brendan Cox, who made his name cooking at Circle Bistro and then assumed the top job in the kitchen at DC Coast, is leaving the area to focus on running a small, sustainable family farm in North Carolina and, eventually, to run his own restaurant.

He sent me a Facebook note this afternoon that read, in part:

" . . . as of March 15 I am leaving Washington and DC Coast. Having lived here all of my 36 years I have witnessed the tremendous growth of our industry and had a chance to work with a large group of dynamic individuals, but there comes a time for everyone to move on. I have purchased a small farm for my family in Pittsboro, NC outside of Chapel Hill where we plan to operate a small sustainable farm supplying a restaurant of my own in the Chapel Hill area. It's a unique opportunity for us to build an integrated system where we can grow what we want for the restaurant, raise chickens, bees and pigs and return organic matter from the restaurant back to the farm in the form of compost. My expectation is for us to take the next year to condition the land and continue the search for restaurant space."